Combat encounters in Gears Tactics start out simple enough, with players going head-to-head with standard Locust soldiers . However, they soon have to deal with Boomers, who are armed with deadly explosives that can wipe out an entire squad in one fell swoop, and Snipers that can pin soldiers in place. But regardless of if players are fighting Boomers or Wretches, every enemy in the game can be a headache if players don’t approach each combat encounter with a plan in m

Sending troops to execute downed enemies not only provides a nice visceral animation to satisfy a player’s bloodlust, but it also fires up your team, giving squad-mates more action points, which are required to perform, well, actions. Stomping a locust’s head into the ground just might be the tactical move you need to win a large bat

Wretches are a more volatile class that, while still weak in terms of hits they can take, they will rush friendly units and attack with melee attacks. Overwatch is best used against these enemies as they will never attack from far off and will always try to get as close to the player as possi

The side missions in Tactics aren’t inherently a bad thing. Many of them give players a chance to strengthen their squad and get a little bloody in the process. Simple objectives like defending central points from enem

The release of Gears Tactics immediately caused gamers to begin comparing the two franchises in an attempt to declare one better than the other. Did Gears Tactics dethrone the king, or is the XCOM franchise still the best of the sci-fi squad-based, tactical/strategy ge

Since the playable characters in Gears Tactics are constantly becoming stronger, the game has to do a couple of things to stay challenging. For one, there are many missions that restrict who can be used, and when players are doing side missions, they can only use each character in a mission once until the main story advances. This forces players to use some of their lower-leveled soldiers instead of their most powerful allies. Secondly, Gears Tactics is always adding new enemies to the mix that will make players change up their combat strateg

All of the Gears landmarks are here to be enjoyed, despite the new genre. Muscle-bound human trucks make up the squads, and all the body tearing weaponry they wield in the franchise is here, and just as destructive as alw

Drones are the most common form of enemies that the player will encounter first and throughout the entirety of Gears Tactics. They are weak units that attack from medium range and set up overwatch whenever possible. These enemies will appear in large waves and, while weak, they can easily overwhelm a player with their numb

In the modern XCOM games, soldiers get new abilities when they advance in level (rank). This “perk” system works well, but characters can go from weak to overpowered after advancing only one rank. Gears Tactics uses a similar system, but the number of perks is greatly increased over what XCOM offers. The perks in Gears Tactics are not only more numerous, they also allow for more varied tactical options on the battlefield. This helps soldiers seem more unique and allows players to make soldiers more suited to a specific task or tac

Plus, they all come in with personal issues that seemingly go nowhere, making the journey amount to nothing more than splattering a ton of monsters . That’s not inherently a bad thing, but in this slower-paced SLG game beginner guide, a more interesting story would have set it over the

However, there is a bit of a setup to perform an execution. First, players will need to cripple enemies by dealing enough damage to an enemy unit that they fall to their knees, but not enough to kill them. Then, a player will have to move a unit to that downed enemy putting themselves in harm’s way to perform an execution . Once looming over your enemy’s body, switch to your pistol and execute the tar

This serves to give players the feeling of always being one step behind their enemy; which helps heighten the tension. Gears Tactics starts the player with a group of soldiers that can seemingly dispatch hordes of alien soldiers with e

Even so, Gears Tactics players will likely be having enough fun with the gameplay that the repetitive missions may not bother them that much. Plus, the side missions do give players the chance to collect more loot and level up their characters. And this is where Gears Tactics becomes especially difficult to put down. The game is generous with its loot, meaning players are always finding new armor and weapon attachments to improve their soldiers. Each class also has its own skill tree with no wasted space. Each new skill opens up a multitude of new strategic opportunities on the battlefield, and this progression is hugely reward

However, when soldiers can be killed any time, it can be frustrating that dozens upon dozens of missions will level them into only slightly stronger versions of themselves. If you want to max out a specific soldier’s skill, you basically have to focus all your leveling into that skill to have any cha